Pet owners given 120 days to find animals after disaster
By SUZETTE PORTER
Article published on Wednesday, June 28, 2006  |
CLEARWATER – The county Board of Commissioners on June 20 approved, 5-1, a revised version of a new animal services ordinance that gives pet owners 120 days to reclaim their pets after a disaster.
Commissioner Bob Stewart cast the “no” vote. Commissioner John Morroni was absent.
The revised ordinance was proposed after Commissioners Calvin Harris, Ronnie Duncan and Karen Seel voted against the original ordinance that would have given pet owners six months to reclaim their pets. Commissioner Susan Latvala urged fellow commissioners to approve the original ordinance.
“I think we should approve it as is,” Latvala said. “And, if we find that it needs to be changed later, we could do it.”
Kenny Mitchell, director of Animal Services, proposed revising the county’s existing ordinance in response to the “many lessons learned post-Katrina.”
He said animals and owners were having trouble getting back together because of the “limited opportunity to reunite.”
The new ordinance increases the holding time for animals – disaster or not – from five to 10 days for strays, animals with no identification; and from 10 to 30 days for animals with identification.
Mitchell had requested a six-month timeframe for holding animals after a disaster. Originally, he had proposed a one-year waiting period but had compromised on six months after talking to other animal rescue groups, he told the BCC on June 6.
Mitchell said they had learned from Katrina that the 30 days allowed during that disaster was not enough time. He said some people were still looking for their pets.
Mitchell told the BCC on June 20 he thought that it would not be a problem to get people to adopt pets with the understanding that it was temporary for six months.
“I don’t think it would slow adoptions,” he said. “People want disaster animals.”
Mitchell said if a disaster happened in Pinellas, animals that might be sent to other areas would go with a waiver stating the owner’s right to reclaim them after six months.
Connie Brooks, director of operations for SPCA Tampa Bay and chair of the disaster animal response team, told commissioners of her first-hand experience helping in Mississippi after Katrina.
She explained that circumstances had left no choice but to send rescued animals to any place that would take them.
“Two days after Katrina we had over 400 animals with no place to go and no way to know who they belonged to,” she said. “In 10 days, we had more than 1,000.”
She said the animals were held outdoors in a horse stable, so when the area was threatened by Hurricane Rita, officials from Mississippi and the Humane Society of the United States made the decision to transport the animals to other places.
She said the animals were microchipped before they left and placed on the Petfinder Internet site. She said while some owners had found their pets on the Internet, others don’t have access to computers.
“People are still looking,” she said. “Some have just now got home.”
Brooks said she believed people would adopt animals on a waiver as long as one year.
Jack Geller, president of the Humane Society of Pinellas, and Bill Mazurek, interim director, objected to the six months, saying it was too long.
Geller said it was hard on animals to be kept in a shelter for long periods of time and that he didn’t have confidence that a waiver for temporary adoptions of six months would work.
“Three months time is sufficient,” he said.
Mazurek said people would begin to bond with animals in six months time and questioned people’s willingness to give up the animals. He said while it was heartwarming to see reunions between pets and the original owners, it was better for the animals to have a shorter timeframe.
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Article published on Wednesday, June 28, 2006
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